Oklahoma needs Stitt and Pinnell

Life hasn't left me with much time to write about politics this year, so I've focused on areas like the State Questions where there's a gap in coverage. Where others have already said what I'm thinking, I'll gladly point you to their words.

Jamison Faught, the Muskogee Politico, explains why it's urgent that Oklahomans elect a conservative governor and lieutenant governor, as the legislature has been roped in by the unions, with GOP legislative leaders targeting principled conservative colleagues for defeat.

As the Oklahoma economy rebounds, state government will be flush with cash. With the legislature lurching leftward, both through Democrat pickups and moderate Republicans purging conservatives from the GOP caucus during the primaries, the pressure to explode government growth and spending will be tremendous.

Faught thinks that Kevin Stitt, a political newcomer, and Matt Pinnell, a political insider, will complement each other quite well:

Kevin Stitt has made government efficiency and accountability a key part of his platform. He has singled-out some major areas of needed reform in the budgeting process and how agencies operate. Stitt can wield a Trumpian hammer to the status quo in Oklahoma City and bring long-needed changes to how our state is run.

Matt Pinnell makes a perfect fit with Kevin Stitt. Where Stitt has no previous political experience or relationships with elected officials, Pinnell helped get many of them elected in his former role as OKGOP chair. His built-in relationships with many of the players in the Capitol will go a long way toward helping craft and guide the Stitt agenda through the marble halls of the State Capitol.

There's another reason we need to have a conservative in the governor's mansion, particularly over the next four years: Redistricting after the 2020 census. I realize that the left-wing "mainstream" media doesn't think there was a problem with gerrymandering before Republicans took control of the process, but I was writing about blatant Democrat gerrymandering back in 1991. After the 1980 census, Democrats redrew the congressional map after the 1980 census to put Republican south Tulsa into the then-strongly Democrat 2nd District, in hopes of protecting 1st District Democrat Congressman Jim Jones. The post-1990 Democrat gerrymander, which effectively disenfranchised growing metro suburbs by slicing them up between rural Democrat districts, postponed the Republican takeover of the legislature by a decade.

MORE: AP Fact Check debunks Edmondson's claims about Stitt's mortgage business. And here's more fact-checking from the Stitt campaign about his comments regarding Mary Fallin and vaccinations.